Ghost stories For all of the excitement that surrounded Wilco on the Maine State Pier or Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall or the various sold-out Ray LaMontagne shows of the past year, there is no question that last Sunday's Phish show at the Cumberland County Civic Center was the biggest thing to hit our fair city in a very long time.

Wanting more After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.

Still Wonderful It's a risky gamble, creating a stage version of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life .

Ghost stories For all of the excitement that surrounded Wilco on the Maine State Pier or Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall or the various sold-out Ray LaMontagne shows of the past year, there is no question that last Sunday's Phish show at the Cumberland County Civic Center was the biggest thing to hit our fair city in a very long time.

Wanting more After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.

Still Wonderful It's a risky gamble, creating a stage version of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life .

Two sides of life "I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist," the Pop artist Andy Warhol wrote in 1975. "Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."

2009: The year in dance You could say there were two tremendous forces that propelled dance into the world of modern culture: the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev and the choreography of Merce Cunningham.

Hearts and souls (and laughs too) It's been a good year for theater around here — an ingeniously roasted dramatic chestnut here, a new and safely landed flight of fancy there. Below are 10 productions that particularly stood out.

Big starts I kick off my highlights of 2009 with praise for a theater company that has just finished its inaugural season: The Legacy Theater Company, founded by former City Theater artistic director Steve Burnette.

Beyond Dilla and Dipset With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.

MICHAUD FOR GOVERNOR | November 03, 2014 However you’ve been following the race for Governor this election season, you’ve been hearing it from all sides, so we’ll make this one brief. We urge you to vote for Michael Michaud.

ADVANCED BEAUTY LESSONS | November 03, 2014 Described as a “body-positive visibility project,” Portland’s Jack Tar 207 is all about representation. Models are encouraged to bring their own clothing and personal belongings to the shoot, which owner-designer LK Weiss says brings out “a level of confidence that many people don’t feel in front of a camera.”

LITERALLY LGBT | October 31, 2014 A community-compiled list of important GBLTQ works through the years.

BACK TO REALITY | September 18, 2014 If you’re a student in southern Maine and are at all interested in arts and humanities, and have a budget of exactly $10 to spend on any one event, there’s a lot in your favor.